■ Philippines
Troops arrest rebels
Philippine troops guarding a group of Japanese film makers shooting a docu-mentary on a southern island have arrested two Muslem Abu Sayyaf rebels, a marines spokesman said yesterday. Captain Rommel Abrau said the two rebels were aboard a motorboat when they were intercepted last weekend by soldiers off Sitangkai island, 1,120km south of Manila. "Our troops seized two automatic rifles and several rounds of ammunition from the captured rebels," Abrau said. "We are still determining if the two were actually spying on the foreigners."
■ Vietnam
Man kills lover for bike
A Hanoi court sentenced a man to death on Monday, after he was convicted of killing his girlfriend in order to steal her motorbike. Nguyen Khac Diep, 22, was convicted of bludgeoning his girlfriend, Nguyen Thi Phuong Anh, 19, to death with a hammer in Hanoi on Oct. 27 this year, a senior official from Hanoi Peoples Court said. After killing the girl at her home, Diep stole her motorbike, mobile phone and a digital camera worth almost US$1,000. "Diep was arrested on Oct. 30, after trying to sell the stolen goods," the official said. Since the beginning of this year, Vietnam has executed 62 prisoners, handed down 60 death penalties and upheld 50 death sentences.
■ China
Drink kills stray roach
How do you remove a stray cockroach jammed in the ear? Get the roach drunk. A doctor in the southeastern Chinese port city of Xiamen plucked a 1.5cm roach from a 12-year-old boy's ear with tweezers four minutes after dousing it with alcohol, the official China Daily news-paper reported on Tuesday. The doctor at the city's Zhongshan Hospital, who wasn't further identified, sees up to two patients each month with similar insect problems, the paper said. "Victims of similar intrusions should seek medical help and not attempt to remove the cockroach themselves as there was a real risk of the eardrum being damaged," the report said.
■ China
Dissident asks Powell's help
The US lawyer representing high-profile dissident Yang Jianli, who has suffered a stroke while in a Chinese jail, said yesterday he had asked US Secretary of State Colin Powell to help in securing medical parole for his client. A letter was sent to Powell just hours after Yang met his brother, sister and nephew in his Beijing jail for his first encounter with relatives since being arrested two-and-a-half years ago, according to lawyer Jared Genser. Yang, who is serving a five-year sentence for espionage, told his family that he had suffered a minor stroke in late July and that he was hospitalized for a week afterwards.
■ China
Search for UFO is on
Thousands of villagers in northwest China's Gansu Province were combing the hills in search of an uniden-tified flying object believed to be large meteorite. The object is thought to have hit the rural suburbs, about 60km from downtown Lanzhou on Sat-urday night, causing a loud explosion recorded by the Gansu Provincial Seismology Bureau, the China Daily said. Elderly people and young children alike in Yuzhong County amassed on Tuesday and scattered themselves in the hills in search of what experts think could be a one tonne object, the Beijing News said. Three large silver-colored unusual looking stones that are believed to be fragments from the meteorite were found.
■ United Kingdom
Nun gives away prize money
An Irish-born nun who won a ?69,000 (US$135,000) prize on Tuesday gave it away on the spot. Sister Kathleen Murphy, 50, of St. Catherine's convent in Edinburgh, won a prize for becoming the 100-millionth passenger to fly with low-cost Irish airline Ryanair. "I felt a huge sense of relief and freedom when I found out I had won, because I knew I wouldn't have to worry how I was going to spend it. I knew it would go to those who needed it," she said. She gave away the award to her convent, who will use it to feed the hungry.
■ France
Tallest bridge inaugurated
President Jacques Chirac dedicated France's newest wonder on Tuesday -- a sleek roadway bridge billed as the world's tallest. Ahead of its public opening on Thursday, the Millau bridge has been celebrated as a work of art combining the strength of cement and steel with the "delicacy of a butterfly." Stretching 2.5km through France's Massif Central mountains, the bridge will enable motorists to take a drive through the sky 270m above the Tarn River valley. The bridge rests on seven pillars -- the tallest measuring 340m, making it 16m taller than the Eiffel Tower.
■ United States
Twins give birth to twins
Two twin sisters are seeing double -- or make that quadruple -- after delivering two sets of twin boys on Tuesday. Twenty-one-year-olds Ashlee Spinks of Indianapolis and Andrea Springer of Conyers, Georgia, delivered their boys by scheduled Caesarean sections about an hour apart at Northside Hospital. The women were six months pregnant when they found out they were both going to have twin boys due on the same date. The two couples said twins run in the families of all four parents, and that they did not use fertility drugs to conceive the babies. Dr Larry Matsumoto said the chances of twin sisters being pregnant with twin boys due on the same date are probably one in a million.
■ Italy
Donkeys replace mowers
An Italian town is setting donkeys to work mowing the grass on the side of its highways in an effort to save money and reduce pollution. Fed up with paying some 100,000 euros (US$132,800) a year to cut the grass on its out-of-town roads with tractor-mowers, the local government of Treviso, near Venice, said on Tuesday it had bought six donkeys to do the work instead. "This purchase will allow us to save cash as well as launch an experimental ecological project," said local government chief Luca Zaia, who paid just over 2,000 euros for the six animals.
■ Italy
Milan to `brand' panettone
Proud Milanese bakers and pastry chefs took a first step on Tuesday toward protecting the city's famous panettone Christmas cake from inferior copies, publishing their request for an official European "brand." If Milan's bakers have their way, from next year the mushroom-shaped panettone cakes that fill the city's food shops could carry a multi-colored logo and a certificate of authenticity -- the food equivalent of the DOC label for wines, and a guarantee of traditional baking methods. Panettone, a sponge-like cake often studded with raisins and candied fruit, is a Christmas treat across Italy, and Italians are expected to spend a total of 360 million euros ($480 million) on them this year alone.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of